Having both observed and experienced the joys and challenges of parenting as well as teaching, I've concluded that it's easier to be a teacher. When life administers its bumps to our children, which it does, I am happy to respond with compassion and objectivity to the children I have taught. When life does the same for my own child, it's harder to keep that balance and compassion can turn into sympathy which ultimately weakens the child. For in the child's mind, if mom finds this difficulty so hard to manage, how can I ever get through it? The child is burdened by too much emotion coming from the parent and parents struggle with reining in their emotions regarding their children.
That's where the call to consciousness in parenting is most evident since until parenting, we have perhaps not yet been asked to manage our emotions so carefully, except perhaps at work. While teaching, it's clear that we are doing a service and we don our best self to administer that service well. It's possible to achieve that when we work around eight hours a day and there are social mores in place. Parenting is an around-the-clock job done at home where we might be accumstomed to giving our emotions more free rein. In addition, it's a job that we receive no training for and the books don't teach us what is really important; that comes only with experience.
As a teacher, I've always told parents that our emotions are the trump card. In other words if we do everything "right" but we are emtionally distraught while doing it, the value is diminished. Instead of being perfect, we might serve our children better by finding our faith, confidence, joy and general sense that all shall be well no matter what comes. When we mirror that for our children, we are like the sun that shines on us everyday reflecting warmth, our children soak it up and become strong.
So rather than trying to do it all and becoming stressed in the process, set up a simple rhythmic lifestyle for your family and then dig deep so your soul can sing while you're doing it. If you need to work fulltime, then work. If you need to go out with women friends to feed your soul, then do it. If you need to ignore the kitchen floor that needs scrubbing so you can take a walk on a beautiful autumn day and savor the colors of the trees, then do it.
That's what early childhood teachers do; they savor the moment and in this way, they join the children in their sacred space. Strong emotions, adult conversations, paying bills all happen when the children are not around. In their presence, we observe with objectivity and respond with an open compassionate heart, knowing that too much emotion is more than a young child can bear. By practicing this way of being, a habit develops, we train ourselves in a way of thinking that brings emotional balance.
That's why it is easier to be a teacher than a parent. We receive training and social support. Come to think of it though, parents are teachers. Do you remember the book, You are Your Child's First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin? I guess the lines in these roles are blurred but I think the message is the same.
